Patience
by atree
Summary: Hikigaya, Hiratsuka, and what could've been. ["Don't get any bright ideas, idiot. Student-teacher relationships are strictly forbidden."]
1. Patience

A/N: This is a what-if scenario involving the café scene in S2E3, though it can be read stand-alone. I have made no attempt to mimic the LN style.

Patience

The café lies in the shadow of an overpass. Even on sunny days its sign is difficult to make out, and on cloudy days you can't see it at all unless you're standing right in front of it. Its poor choice of location is likely what has relegated it to obscurity, bordered on either side by restaurants poised proudly in the sunlight. Every time I come, I expect an out-of-business sign strung across the door. But that's why I like it so much.

The place is empty when I arrive, as always. The silence, the lonely chairs, the waitress browsing her phone and hurriedly stashing it away when she sees a customer coming – who in their right minds prefer trendier cafes with their noise and crowds and twenty-minute lines? I order a coffee and take a seat at the counter, warming my hands around the cup, breathing in the smell. Winters in Chiba can be brutal, but the wind howling outside only heightens how warm it is inside. I take out my book – the newest novel by Haruki Murakami, who is a good writer but has problems with pacing – and flip through the pages, trying to remember where I stopped. There is still thirty minutes until the next bus. I think I can stay here forever.

"Yo, Hikigaya. Didn't expect to see you here."

A hand claps me on the back. Hiratsuka sits down next to me with a glass of something that is definitely not coffee. She says, "What are you up to? Shouldn't you be helping out Iroha?"

"Should a teacher really be drinking right after school?" I snap the book shut. Books, like headphones, are social cues not to be disturbed, but even if I'm stiff inside a coffin Hiratsuka will find ways to force me to socialize. She wears her usual black jacket and pants with a red tie, and for once she has ditched her lab coat – why does she wear that thing, anyway? She's a Modern Japanese teacher, not a science teacher. She downs half her glass and wipes her mouth with the back of her hand. She grins.

"You'll understand when you're older."

I hope not. Becoming an alcoholic before I'm thirty is something that's pretty pathetic, even for me. That's at least one advantage loners have – drinking in high school is reserved for the popular kids who sneak six-packs behind their parents' backs. I've taken sips of wine during New Year's and the memory still burns my tongue. It must be an acquired taste. Hiratsuka has acquired plenty indeed.

Stretching out on the chair, she crosses her arms behind her head. "So? What are you doing here? Never thought I'd see you in a place like this. But then again, it suits you, I suppose. This place also has that dead fish-eyed look."

"Hey!" She can insult me, but she has no right to insult my favorite café. She laughs.

"Just a joke. Well, half of it, anyway. So, have you made any progress with Iroha?"

I grunt.

"I thought you'd have a plan all worked out by now."

I mumble something and even I'm not sure what I said.

"At this rate, Yukinoshita's going to win."

I grunt again.

She seems to get the message. She props her head up against a fist, looking at me with eyes between commiserative and cavalier. I think she thinks she knows what I'm thinking. In the past she must have been like me – she has insinuated as much, but even without her saying anything I would've known. Like attracts like. Perhaps that's the source of the confidence in her gaze, staring into both mirror and crystal ball. Certainly that is the only explanation for the difference between her and Haruno, two women of similar physical attractiveness but such divergent popularity. She wears her smirk like a Harajuku handbag, and there is still a droplet of beer coiling around those lips, carving a path through the lipstick down to her chin before settling on the rise of her breasts, a small damp spot on the cloth. I avert my eyes, staring at my reflection in the coffee.

"What were you reading?" she says.

"I wasn't reading. I was _about_ to read, but then you showed up."

"As a language teacher, it warms my heart to see a student reading serious literature."

"This coming from someone who reads shounen manga all day."

"Nothing wrong with some low-brow stuff once in a while." She takes another drink and reaches into her pocket, pulling out a cigarette, before grimacing and putting it back. "I forgot. No smoking allowed."

"That's gonna kill you early, you know."

"Worried? I'm touched."

"Is that the kind of example a teacher should set for her students?"

She snorts. "I never smoke or drink during class. In my off-hours I do whatever I want. What are the chances a student sees me?"

Quite high, I want to say, seeing as how all the members of the Service Club likely have _in situ_ lung cancer by now. But she has already finished her drink and flags the waitress for another. Judging by the flush of her cheeks, this is not her second. She might have a reputation as a dependable teacher in school, but outside of it she's the most irresponsible adult I've ever met. It's not even six o'clock and already her sense of personal space is compromised, her arm brushing against mine, her hair spilling out on my shoulder. "Drinking is more fun with a buddy," she declares, taking another gulp. Suddenly I am an accomplice to her vice. We are terrible influences on each other. I feel a stab of pity, imagining her reading manga and drinking beer all alone in her room – wait, that's actually what I do all the time (without the beer, of course). She looks at me forlornly. "Pity you're too young to drink."

"Have you considered that maybe your drinking and smoking habits are probably the reason why you're still unmarried – "

She leans in close, slinging an arm around my shoulder. "Care to finish that sentence?"

"What sentence?" Saving her life is not worth the risk of losing mine. Her grip relaxes but she doesn't move her arm. Her body gives off more heat than the radiator, and something round and soft pushes against my shoulder. More than ever I'm glad the place is deserted. The waitress eyes us for several seconds before going back to her phone – it's not what you think, really. Gently, I try to extricate myself, but Hiratsuka clings to me like a child to a parent in some bizarre sort of role-reversal, and she is rambling on about her day at school and how that Home Ec teacher dumped a load of paperwork onto her and how her mother called her yet again nagging her about marriage and how her friend from college invited her to her wedding anniversary, that woman's just rubbing it in at this point, how can someone twenty-seven years old have three children already? When she is done so is her drink. She slams the glass against the table and at last frees my neck from her chokehold. I rub my hand along the spot where her fingers have left red indentations. Some warmth still lingers.

"Don't _ever_ marry some superficial bitch only interested in your money," she says, stabbing a finger at me. "I'll never forgive you if you do."

I can smell the alcohol on her breath, mixed with the scent of her perfume, something sharp, something sweet, a mixture of flowers with names like passionfruit and honeysuckle and hyacinth that she has read about in a magazine which promises to make her desirable to men, and I know this because I, too, once scoured magazines back in middle school for fashion tips that will enhance my image to the girl I had a crush on, only to realize – as I'm sure she realizes – that there is something fundamentally different about us loners, us underground men and women, a part of ourselves we cannot detect but which others can see emblazoned across our chest in fiery strips of gold. And when they see it they pass us by.

But all this cannot be said. In any case it is already understood. I say, "Is that the sort of advice a teacher should give a student?"

"A life lesson. It'll be more useful than trigonometry or whatever it is that you're learning." She sighs, rubbing her eyes. "Thanks, Hikigaya. For listening."

"Not like I had a choice."

She scowls. "This is the part where you're supposed to say, 'No problem.' No tact at all. That's why you're not popular with women."

It's my turn to scowl. Like _she_ has any right to talk about popularity, but I get the feeling if I speak it out loud I will soon be unable to breath. "Shouldn't you be going somewhere? If someone sees us, they're going to think you're playing favorites."

"No, no, they'll think I'm a model teacher helping out a troubled student." She yawns, leaning back so her breasts arch forward. She has loosened her tie and unbuttoned the top button of her shirt. "Problem with you, Hikigaya, is that you're too mature."

"What you're mistaking for maturity is just cynicism."

She laughs, a high note like glass chimes, and if men married woman solely based on the sound of their laughter, she would be divorced six times already. Laughter might even offset her unhealthy habits and help her live longer – it's true, I read it online. "Maybe," she says. "It's difficult to tell sometimes. Kids should be optimistic about the world. Enjoy it while you can. Once you graduate, you'll find out that life is damn harder than you expected. Worst part is, everyone else seems to have it easier than you."

"That's _really_ not helping my cynicism."

"Life lessons." She stands up, placing a hand on my shoulder. "I gotta go. Take care – "

"Huh? Hikigaya? Is that you?"

The voice is familiar in the way screeching violins is familiar. It can't possibly be her – former classmates are like corpses in that you never expect them to rise again – but yes, it is Orimoto Kaori, walking over to us carrying a bag of donuts. Her hair is longer than I remember, and wavier, but the smile on her face is the same smile I remember from middle school, a smile that is the default expression of the face and which has once led me to believe that perhaps here finally is a girl who's interested in me the way I'm interested in her. A sappier guy would call it heartbreak. Next to her is a black-haired girl I don't recognize. They wear uniforms of a school I'm unfamiliar with.

Hiratsuka, who is still standing with her hand on my shoulder, raises an eyebrow. "Friends of yours, Hikigaya?"

She doesn't need to sound _quite_ so disbelieving.

"No," I say. "We're not friends."

"That's harsh, Hikigaya," Orimoto says. "We were middle school classmates! Don't tell me you've forgotten. I'm Orimoto Kaori. You asked me out before!"

Her friend stifles her laughter. "Seriously?"

" _You_ asked a girl out?" Hiratsuka says, giving me a sidelong glance that promises I will never hear the end of it. "Well, well, you're not as spineless as I thought."

"We hadn't talked at all before, so it was a real surprise!" Orimoto says, which is completely untrue. We had spoken and even texted each other, which for her must've been commonplace enough to forget completely. But those conversations had once been the highlights of my day. That's the problem with nice girls. "Well, he didn't talk to anyone, really. He was practically mute! Our class had a laugh at his confession."

"It's all in the past now," I say.

"Right? It was a long time ago, so who cares?" Orimoto says. She and her friend laugh.

I laugh along, and of all the terrible things I've done, including the times I cosplayed back in middle school and the time I pushed Komachi into the river and the time I kicked a stray dog and he started to bleed from the mouth and I ran away and to this day I wonder if the dog died, that laughter inside the café with Orimoto and her friend is the worst. Courage is easy to talk about but impossible to practice. Hiratsuka looks at me with an unreadable expression on her face, except her eyes are wet and shining and I fear for her job if it ever becomes known she punched two students in a café when her blood alcohol content is in the double digits.

"Who's this?" Orimoto turns to Hiratsuka, oblivious to the danger. "Your girlfriend?"

"No way!" her friend answers even though the question is clearly rhetorical. "She's way out of his league!"

"Ha ha. This is my teacher – "

"Yeah, I'm his girlfriend," Hiratsuka says sharply. "Got a problem with that?"

Their laughter freezes mid-syllable. Hiratsuka crosses her arms, leaning against the counter. We three stare at her. The challenge hangs in the air like a guillotine blade. She wears the same countenance as that of Oda Nobunaga in his temple at Kyoto, staring down a sky of burning arrows as the screams of his men erupt from below. Perhaps courage is not so impossible.

Orimoto is the first to recover. "Congrats, Hikigaya! I knew you could do it."

Her friend is still staring from me to Hiratsuka, Hiratsuka to me. For a moment she catches Hiratsuka's eye – she flinches and turns away, tugging at Orimoto's sleeve.

"Well, good luck to you," Orimoto says. "We'll be going. Catch you later, Hikigaya!"

Her friend practically bolts for the door. How easily people ignore what they don't accept. I'm a little insulted. Is it really so unbelievable that a person like Hiratsuka can be my girlfriend? Alright, maybe on the surface, yes, if you just go by physical appearance. But dig deeper beneath my skin and you'll find an intelligent young man with a heart of gold, wise in all the ways of the world, honest and virtuous to a fault, who is occasionally a victim of circumstance. Dig deeper beneath Hiratsuka's skin and you'll find a woman more bitter than grapefruit soaked in lemon juice. But a noble woman nonetheless, I think, staring at her face bronzed by the sunset. But mostly bitter.

Just before they are out of earshot, Hiratsuka mutters, "Dumb bitch."

She sits down, fishing out a cigarette. She takes a single drag, then extinguishes it with her thumb and throws it away.

"You didn't need to do that," I say quietly.

"Of course I did."

"It would've been fine."

She growls. "You asked someone like her out? Here I thought you had good judgement, if nothing else. If Yuigahama and Yukinoshita hear about this, they're going to kill you."

"Orimoto's not so terrible." The moment I say it I realize it's a mistake. Hiratsuka slams her fist against the counter, her voice cracking with disbelief.

"You're defending her!"

Orimoto really is not so terrible. Hurtful, yes, but not terrible; she is incapable of terror. Malice has no place in her heart, and though her words can kill she murders inadvertently. I could never bring myself to hate her; it would've been easy had she simply been cruel. That's the problem with nice girls. But Hiratsuka cannot see it. She has so much venom herself she cannot fathom it lacking in others, and for every act there must be a reason, a motive, a hidden meaning. The muscles of her jaw are clenched enough to pale. She is angrier with me than she was with the girls. She was not simply standing up for me. She was standing up for herself – in Orimoto she saw the life and personality she has tried to cultivate; where Orimoto's flowered, hers withered.

"It's in the past," I say. "More importantly, if anybody at school hears you're going out with a student, you're definitely going to be fired."

She waves her hand. "Oh, please."

The sky is dark. My coffee has coagulated, and it is the small pains in life, I think, staring down at the black liquid, that add up and outweigh the big ones. Hiratsuka splays against the counter, arms hanging over the edge, as if all her energy has dissipated along with the warmth. My bus will be here soon. The city has fallen quiet around us, broken only by the occasional rumble of a car with headlights illuminating the walls like beacons. Tomorrow is a school day. I will wake up early and so will she, and when we see each other at school no word of today's incident will pass between us, but we will understand each other a bit better, I think, tomorrow.

She stands up, absentmindedly fishing for another cigarette. "Take care, Hikigaya."

"See you later, sweetheart."

The cigarette slips from her fingers. She stares at me, blinking very slowly, then her face turns the same color as her tie and she splutters, "What the hell was that? Don't act like I'm actually your girlfriend!"

I was joking, maybe. She speaks rapidly to the floor tiles, citing the responsibility of teachers, the fleeting desires of puberty, legal consent laws. Her flustered face is too cute. A twenty-something-almost-thirty woman has no right to be this cute. I laugh, a real, genuine laugh that adds at least two years to my life expectancy. She glares at me.

"Don't get any bright ideas, idiot. Student-teacher relationships are strictly forbidden."

She stalks away, hands in her pockets, another cigarette in her lips. Forbidden, indeed. Even I can do better. Just as she reaches the door, she turns around, smoke curling around her face. The light from the red ash tip does what no amount of makeup can. So softly that I hear her less through her voice than through the motions of her lips, she says:

"Grow up soon, Hikigaya."

Then she is gone, and I wonder why graduation feels so far away.


	2. Growing Up

A/N: I wasn't planning on continuing this, but it just sort of happened. The ramen bits and the promise referred to in this chapter come from Vol.5 of the LN. Unfortunately, the anime skipped over these parts (director must not be a sensei fan). Fortunately, I've been informed by my readers that the volume is translated.

Growing Up

Exams come like a disease. Even I catch it, staying up late to study math and science. I can ace liberal arts in my sleep – a skill Hiratsuka likes to attribute to her tutelage – but math and science have always held me back. It's not a problem with me but with the school system. The school wants to turn out well-rounded, mediocre members of society, but greatness has always been specialized. Beethoven never had to do math. Murakami never had to learn physics. And a house husband has no need for either.

All clubs are canceled in exam season. Without the Service Club, I see Yuigahama rarely and Yukinoshita never. A more convivial guy would've called it lonely. I've almost forgotten this sensation of freedom, of worrying about just _my_ problems. Let others fix their own for a change.

The last class on Friday is Modern Japanese, Hiratsuka's class. The closer we get to exams, the more she bears down on us, a fact Tobe never ceases to complain about. He is complaining now in a voice loud enough for everyone – including Hiratsuka – to hear, about how he's never going to remember Yukio Mishima or Eiji Yoshikawa or Kenzo Tange, but he does remember Amy Yamada because she's cute. The other students sneak glances at him and laugh as they pack their bags. What a noble profession teaching is, I think as I head for the door, to squeeze knowledge into rocks. I will never be one.

"Wait up, Hikigaya," Hiratsuka says, clapping me across the back. I almost fall to the floor. She must be taking her frustrations about Tobe out on me.

"What is it?"

"Feeling hungry?"

The question surprises me so much I answer "Yes" without thinking. Lunch was only four hours ago, but I had eaten most of it in first period – _you_ try to resist Komachi's cooking.

"Great! Let's go."

"Go where?"

She stares at me as if I am a particularly dimwitted child. "A restaurant, of course. Where else?"

No, that doesn't even come close to explaining anything. But she is already striding forward. I hurry after her, wondering what the occasion is. Last summer, in the heat of July, I saw a beautiful woman by herself at a wedding. She wore a low-cut black dress lined with fur, standing in a crowd of similarly-dressed guests, but she looked as out-of-place as a tarantula on a wedding cake. When I approached, she took me by the hand. We went to her favorite ramen stand, where she explained to me the intricacies of the noodles, the cooking style of the meat, the consistency of the soup – really, she was entirely too obsessed with ramen. But she promised to take me back again.

"That's after graduation, though," I think out loud.

"We're not getting ramen," Hiratsuka says, grinning. "We're still up for after you graduate."

"What's the occasion?"

"Promotion."

For a second there, I thought she had gotten married – a ludicrous thought, in retrospect. We head out to the parking lot. "Administrators like what I've done with the Service Club," she says. "They say it's a miracle that I've managed to give direction to troubled children. They mean Yukinoshita, of course. You're not on anyone's radar. They say it's finally nice to get an active, visionary, _young_ teacher at the school."

She says the word _young_ like a war veteran showing off a medal of honor. I pity her so much that I let the insult slide.

Hiratsuka's car is a sleek red sports car that, although I don't know anything about cars, I'm pretty sure is several levels above her pay grade. Either she has a rich family nobody knows about, or her terrible management of finances is another reason why she's unmarried. "Aston Martin," she says, petting its top. "I recently put in bi-xenon headlamps and a custom vinyl trim for the passenger seat. Pretty sweet, isn't it? Get in and don't touch anything."

Every person needs a hobby, I suppose. Alcohol and manga can only get you so far. It is the second time I've ever been in her car. Inside is as spotless as I remember, chrome coat gleaming in the sun, with none of the napkins or coffee stains or ragged upholstery like in my parents' car. I guess that's one advantage of being single without children. She hums softly as she drives, thumb tapping against the steering wheel, other arm braced against the windowsill where the wind catches her hair and tosses it behind us. The radio plays "Linda Linda" on low. We drive past Sougou high school and the arcade and the business district into a part of downtown I've never been to. Hiratsuka is rarely the most mature person, but in her car she is the most childish I've ever seen her. In the driver's seat, she displays a part of herself different from the guise of the teacher and different even from the bitter, lonely woman that seeps through the cracks. If she acts like this all the time, I find myself thinking, there won't be enough men left in Chiba for the other women.

We stop at a trendy-looking restaurant in the upscale part of downtown. "Ocean Table," the sign says in English. Dimly, I remember reading the name somewhere – in a magazine or online or perhaps my parents mentioned it in passing – and somehow I associate it with international food. It is a three-story building commanding a view of the harbor, the sort of place a guy will take a girl to impress her; come nighttime, the place will be more crowded than when seagulls flock around a washed-up carcass. Thankfully, it is still early afternoon, and quiet.

"Table for two," Hiratsuka says to the waiter, who, to his credit, doesn't bat an eye at an older woman taking a highschooler out to a meal. Perhaps he thinks we are related, though that is a difficult mistake to make since Hiratsuka is still wearing her white lab coat and I my school uniform. He seats us at a table in the far corner, the best spot in the restaurant, secluded and lonely, especially far from a group of noisy college students at the center.

I always have trouble picking out food at restaurants. There's so much variety – who's to say this is better than that? What if I order something I don't like? And always, it seems, someone else orders something that tastes better than mine. That's part of the reason I like ramen so much. The selection is small, and there are only so many ways you can vary noodles and soup. I glance through the menu, which also lists ramen – a disgrace, because the atmosphere here is clearly unsuited for ramen. Solitarily is the only way to eat ramen. No matter how expensive your ingredients are or how many stars adorn your chef's shirt, ramen will be tasteless among company. Whatever ramen Ocean Table professes to make will be inferior to even cup ramen.

Hiratsuka assures me that she'll pay for everything, and I almost order the six-thousand yen lobster dish. In the end, I order a seafood udon while Hiratsuka orders shrimp tempura. "And a Sapporo," she tells the waiter. Of course.

"If someone sees us," I say, "wouldn't that cause the wrong impression?"

"No chance. We're on the opposite side of the city from the high school, and this isn't the sort of place high school students hang out at, and even if they did, nobody eats at four o'clock in the afternoon."

She has thought this out surprisingly far.

"I _should_ be studying."

"You'd rather study than have dinner with a beautiful woman like me?"

First of all, four o'clock can hardly be called dinner time. Secondly, beautiful is stretching it – though she can be striking in the right light. "I don't think a teacher should be telling a student to _not_ study during finals."

She scoffs. "Don't try to blame me. We both know you're hopeless with the sciences."

Her confidence in me is inspiring. But a break is nice once in a while. I breathe in the smell of seafood and spices and just a hint of Hiratsuka's perfume. Too much studying kills the soul. Even a little bit of studying kills the soul. Standardized tests are terrible ways to gauge performance, didn't you know that? It's true. The _Asahi Shinbun_ published an article about it recently. Standardized tests narrow the curriculum, lower creativity, and undermine student involvement in activities – my terrible science grades are evidence of how far ahead I am of the curve. Most students cram a few days before the test and forget everything the day after. Is that really what a school aims to accomplish? We should do away with them altogether. I say all this to Hiratsuka, who laughs and shakes her head.

"And how would you fix it, smart guy?"

"That's a question for someone else to figure out. It's called division of labor. I can't go around solving every problem, can I?"

She smirks. "You should be a politician."

"I already have a career I want to go into."

"House husband is not a career."

"I'm a pioneer."

She laughs, that most wonderful sound. "Good luck finding a college that lets you major in that. You're going to be graduating soon, you know."

"Still a year away."

"A year is a short time. Thought about where you want to go yet?"

Not in the slightest. There are always more immediate problems. And, if I'm being honest, I don't want to think about college. There is something terrifying about it. I can't quite pinpoint it, but it is akin to my fear of the basement when I was young. I hadn't quite grasped the concept of a basement back then. We used it for a storage room, but I only knew it as a place where things went to die. My stuffed animals, my broken bike, my trading card collection – everything ended up there eventually, and when I found them again months later they had changed. Covered in dust, bathed in half-light, there looked cold and sterile and dead and it was unthinkable that I had once loved them dearly. College must be like that.

"Well, there's still time," Hiratsuka continues. "I'm not here for counseling. But you're smarter than you think."

"I already think I'm pretty smart."

"I take that back. You're not as smart as you think, just smarter than other people give you credit for."

It is a strange blend of insult and compliment. I'm not sure which stings more. Outside the sky has turned dull amber. The laughter of the college students drift down from several tables over. It's impossible to believe that soon I will end up like them. But then again, I had the same feeling back in middle school toward high school students. The Service Club will no doubt be broken up once we graduate. There aren't enough troublesome students left to carry on the tradition. And what of us three? Going to the same college together is a fantasy present only in fiction, where the protagonists need to stick together to carry on the plot. Reality is never quite so convenient. The thought makes me sadder than I like to admit. It must've showed on my face, because Hiratsuka reaches over and squeezes my shoulder.

"You'll grow up to be a fine man. You have me looking out for you."

"That makes me even more worried."

She smiles and shakes her head. "Yeah, yeah, whatever you say. Food's here."

The waiter wheels out two steaming trays. I break open my chopsticks and remember that yes, I am quite hungry, but the seafood udon is disappointingly average. The soup is creamier than I like. The taste of black pepper is overpowering. There is also not nearly enough meat to balance out the noodles – a fault that every restaurant makes, those cheap bastards. Why give me an entire bowl of noodles and only three pieces of fish? You're not fooling anyone. To make matters worse, Hiratsuka reaches over and picks up a piece of fish.

"Oh, don't give me that look," she says. "You can have some of mine, if you want."

I decline. Fried shrimp and noodles go together like bacon and ramen – I've seen it once, at the convenience store. On impulse I bought it, because nothing with ramen in it can truly be bad. Oh, how wrong I was.

"My friend always bragged about how her boyfriend took her here every weekend," Hiratsuka says, tugging a shrimp tail out of her mouth. "She's always going on about how great the place was. Well, the food's not that great."

So that's why she chose this place that is so ill-suited for both of us – instead compromising for this deserted twilight hour. I can identify. Some people just can't understand the need to be alone. "How do you know? You've never tried it!" they will exclaim about mixers, karaoke, parties, clubs, reunions, weddings. The correct answer is, of course, that you don't need to experience something to dislike it. Otherwise we will be chowing dirt and guzzling oil to see if we like the taste. But there are people who still cannot understand, and for those nothing less than experience will testify. So we go to karaoke and clubs and weddings and trendy restaurants, and when we get back we can look them square in the eye and say, "See?" The disappointment on their faces is never worth our effort. But we will have proved it to them at last, and, perhaps, also to ourselves.

"It's all about the glamour," I say. "Ocean Table could serve food scraped out of the bottom of the trashcan and people will still eat it. That's why I don't trust popular restaurants. If you really want to eat good food, you need to look for the street stands, the hidden cafes, the back-alley joints. They know that they can't attract customers by looks alone, so they give their all to their food."

"Agreed." She leans over, jabbing her chopstick at me. "I went to Arira Ramen the other day. Ibuki magazine rated it the number one ramen restaurant in Japan. Not even close."

"What's wrong with it?"

"Alright, it wasn't _terrible_. They had good meat, if nothing else. But you'd expect more from the number one restaurant, won't you?"

"Then what do you consider the best?"

"You'll find out. After graduation."

She smirks. Despite knowing that it is exactly the kind of reaction she anticipates, I am curious. Located deep in the Chousei mountains, Arira Ramen has what Ibuki magazine calls a homey, rustic taste, with none of the fanciness of city restaurants. No miscellaneous spices, no exotic ingredients, no elaborate cooking tricks. Arira raises their own cows and slaughters them weekly for maximum freshness. For their soup, they use purified spring water from the nearby waterfall. In lieu of Disneyworld and the Taj Mahal, Arira Ramen had been on my places to go before I die. What can be better?

"I'm looking forward to it," I say, and for a moment I've never wanted anything so much in my life.

The sun has dipped below the horizon. Already outside is dark except for the glare of headlights. It seems only minutes ago that we left the school beneath a bright red sky. In Chiba winters, night comes quickly and overstays its welcome. We turn down the waiter's offer of dessert. "Enough calories for one day," Hiratsuka says with a grimace. For someone who professes the food's not that great, she has managed to clean her entire plate. I'm tempted to order something to prolong our stay, but I am not hungry either, and certainly not for whatever dessert Ocean Table concocts. The restaurant is getting noisier; more people have started arriving. I'm glad we will leave before the rush.

The ride back is quiet. Hiratsuka doesn't like to speak when she drives, as always, and that is fine with me. Eating has made me sleepy. But near the end of the ride, when we are rounding into the residential district, she says, "Hope you had fun, Hikigaya."

It would be too embarrassing to admit I did, so I grunt.

"I wanted a moment to ourselves," Hiratsuka says.

"Huh?"

"I know you're busy with exams. But once exams end and summer starts, we won't have an excuse to see each other again. So I thought we could celebrate now."

"I hardly think a promotion is thatimportant."

"You're one year closer to graduation." Her voice is soft, as if she's speaking into someone's ear. I close my eyes. The car hums below me, providing percussion to Hiratsuka's wordless tune. One year left, both short and long.

The best and worst thing about life is that it's inevitable. Soon I will be back among pencils and paper. Our interlude is over. I miss it already. Hiratsuka's promise looms over the horizon like the first flashes of lightning before a storm, riding on the last wave of clear summer skies. We are both inexperienced and perhaps too eager for our own good. For all my complaints, I would say my life now is idyllic. Routine is certainly underrated. But graduation and college and growing up thunder in the distance, and even from all the way over here I can feel the tremors. The future is a terrifying squall. Hiratsuka herself is the most terrifying thing of all. She walks the earth like a storm deity, uprooting lesser mortals and throwing them into clubs they would much rather not be in. Lesser men will flee in fear, while I – well, I'm also a bit terrified, truth be told. But part of me yearns for the tempest all the same.

* * *

A/N: I realized that I messed up the timeline this chapter (thanks to the reader who pointed it out). Finals are held in June, during summer, but this story is set during winter for some reason. I'm too accustomed to the college schedule where semester finals can be held in winter -_- Unfortunately, I don't like to make major revisions after I already put it up, so the chapter will remain as is. But to clarify: This chapter is set in the summer.


	3. Fate

Fate

Malls during summer are even worse than during the school year. Like flies, crowds multiply in heat. I sit as still as I can, massaging my temples. Not even the air condition can disguise the ninety-degree weather or the thousands of people crammed inside fifty thousand square feet. Their voices bounce off the walls, thrumming in my head as if I am a tuning fork.

The mall is the last place I want to be in summer, a time to stay inside and watch TV, read, and play videogames – the highest forms of existence. Some people believe that going out with friends is the best way to spend free time, but the desire for companionship is an evolutionary vestige from our caveman days, when our Neanderthal ancestors had to bond together for survival. Haven't we evolved past hunting mammoths and dancing naked and howling at the moon? But I am dragged back to Neolithic times by Yukinoshita, who insists on shopping together for Yui's birthday present. Or we are supposed to, at any rate. I have been waiting twenty minutes.

In a reasonable world, I would text her, but Komachi has warned me that hurrying a girl along is forbidden. The guy is supposed to wait for the girl. Then, after she shows up two hours later and asks how long I've been waiting, I'm supposed to say, "I just got here." When we browse stores, I am to compliment her on her purchases and offer to carry everything. I will, of course, also pay for our lunch. When everything is finished, I will escort her home – never mind that it's on the opposite side of town from my house – and ask her when we can meet up again.

Is it me, or are the roles too unbalanced? If shopping were an RPG, nobody will ever play as the male. Fortunately, Yukinoshita saves me all that trouble by sending me a text:

"I'm not feeling well and will not be able to come. Sorry. However, don't think of this as an excuse to not get Yui a present."

(Verbatim, grammar and all. Yukinoshita is the only one I know who follows textbook rules when texting.)

So this is what it feels like to be stood up. I feel a bit relieved. Still, Yukinoshita is not one to back out of a commitment. Something serious must've happened to keep her from coming. But I would be lying if I said I wasn't irritated, just a bit. On a normal summer day I will still be sleeping, I think forlornly, looking at the clock. The next bus comes at eleven. I can just make it if I hurry.

We see each other at the same time. It sounds less impossible than it is. The crowd is thirty thick between the aisles, and I'm not sure how she caught my eye or I caught hers –the chances of two individuals on opposite sides of the aisle looking across a gap in the crowd at the same time must be infinitesimal. But it happened, and my breath hitches, and in that moment between the intake and the release she has zeroed in on me like a laser-guided rocket.

"Didn't expect to you see here, Hikigaya."

Hiratsuka wears a red sleeveless shirt and a wolf's grin. Held by two thin straps arcing over her back, the shirt exposes a sheen of sweat on the rise of her breasts. She takes a seat next to me, throwing an arm around the backrest like it is the most natural thing in the world, as if we were supposed to meet here all along. "You look miserable. Bet you're glad to see me, right?"

"Ecstatic. I thought you said we wouldn't see each other during the summer."

That is the normal state of things. It's miraculous how we shed our roles and don them again according to the seasons. No student wants to be reminded of school during summer. Seeing a teacher on her off day is like seeing a celebrity at a fast food joint (I met Kentaro Miura at a Freshness Burger once. We never spoke). But Hiratsuka has always blazed past the norms, accelerating all the way; she is either a great teacher or a terrible one.

"Coincidence, coincidence," she says. "What are you doing here all alone?"

"That's my line. _You_ seem to be alone, too."

She scowls, that special why-am-I-not-married-yet scowl, and I steel myself. She was supposed to go shopping with some friends, she tells me, but nobody informed her that everyone was bringing along their husbands and/or boyfriends. They showed off their lovers like prized poodles, my boyfriend's a lawyer, my husband's a doctor, my _last_ husband was also a doctor, don't you just love this necklace my CEO husband bought me? What about your boyfriend, Shizuka? Well, uh…She ditched them at the first opportunity. "I was just about to pick up some beer and head home," she says.

The response is so Hiratsuka-like I laugh; she is nothing if not predictable. She glares at me. "What's so funny?"

"I also got ditched. I was supposed to go shopping with Yukinoshita, but something came up." Seeing the smirk on her face, I assure her that it is not what she thinks it is. We were going to buy a birthday present for Yuigahama.

"And now you're left to buy it alone," she says with a sigh. "Poor Yuigahama. You're going to buy her something she'll be too embarrassed to carry in public, but she'll do it anyway so your feelings aren't hurt."

"Actually, I was just about to leave. I'm sure Yuigahama will be satisfied with a gift card. Only shallow women judge the value of a gift by its price – "

"Oh, no you don't," she says, grabbing my shoulder. "That girl deserves better than that."

I can see the rest of my free time evaporating like summer rain. Frantically, I say, "What's wrong with a gift card? She can buy whatever she wants – "

"Hopeless. Absolutely hopeless. Fortunately, you have someone right here who knows a maiden's heart."

"You're a decade too old to be a maiden – " Her grip crunches down on my shoulder, and I groan, "Fine. Just tell me what to buy."

"No, no, it's not that easy. We need to take a look at everything first. I know just where to go."

She marches me down the colonnade. I protest, but she displays as much concern for my protests as the first day she drafted me into the Service Club. Hiratsuka's hand holding mine is not the smooth, unblemished hand of a girl but the roughened hands of a working woman, callused from years of grading papers. The crowd brushes past us. We draw curious stares, she and I. Surely nobody is deluded enough to believe we are a couple. In another universe there is a Hachiman who does not turn his head, I think wistfully, or a Yukinoshita who is not held up, or a Hiratsuka who is lugging home a case of beer. Why can't I live in one of those worlds?

We arrive at a clothing store called Xanadu, which I doubt is an actual English word. The moment I step inside, I feel as if I have been spirited away. This is not the first time I've been in a clothing store, but this one must be especially fashionable – never have I felt such a concentrated amount of _normalcy_ in one place. I am an alien. Xanadu does sound like the name of a planet, now that I think about it. Certainly I cannot belong to the same race as these men and women who look as if they walked out of a fashion magazine, browsing through racks of indistinguishable clothes with the same erudite air as scientists. I am still wearing the shirt my mother bought me two years ago and which, to my chagrin, I've never outgrown. The snatches of conversation I catch are so banal I feel like a more productive member of a society just by listening:

"Did you catch the drama last night?"

"How does this look on me?"

"You two broke up?"

By the time I walk out of here, I will have lost twenty IQ points and be trying to find a girlfriend.

"What are you staring at?" Hiratsuka says, pushing me along. "You look like a rabbit in a fox den. Come on, there's a few dresses over here I've had my eye on for a while…"

Hiratsuka, at least, looks the part. She still has not let go of my hand, and I cling to hers like a lifeline. For all our similarities, she has adapted to society much better than I have; perhaps that comes with experience. I'm a bit jealous. She walks through the aisles without a glance at anyone around her, though she receives quite a few in turn. In that red shirt, she looks a decade younger, but I'd bite off my tongue before I tell her that.

"So?" she says at last, stopping at a rack of dresses. "What do you think?"

The dresses – black, white, purple, blue – stare back. I close my eyes. Gaze long into the abyss, and the abyss also gazes into you.

"Which one's cheapest?"

She groans. "Price is the last thing you should worry about when shopping for a girl. Which one will Yuigahama like the most? In other words, which one will she look best in?"

She might as well as have asked me to solve the Riemann hypothesis. I know less about fashion than about physics. If fashion were a class in school, I would still be held back to first grade. Not to mention that Yuigahama looks good in almost anything – you can put her in a Pan-san costume and she'll still look cute.

My floundering like a fish on land told her everything she needed to know. "No helping it then," Hiratsuka says. She grabs a dress and disappears to the changing room. "Wait here."

I take a seat, feeling lost without Hiratsuka to shield me. Several women shoot me strange glances. I feel like I am in a store full of Yumikos. Too many people judge someone based on appearance (even though I am quite handsome). Stores like this are commercialized deception. Appearances can be altered, styled, made up – a good-looking person does not look that way naturally (even though I am quite handsome). Besides, physical attractiveness is yet another vestige from our caveman days, a carry-over from the mating rituals of our animal ancestors. In this age, there is no physiological benefit to a cleft chin over a weak jaw, or a sharp nose over a dull nose, or large eyes over dead-fish eyes (even though I am quite handsome).

Five minutes later, Hiratsuka finally comes out wearing the black dress. She does a half twirl, letting the edge swish against the floor.

"How do I look?"

"Amazing."

She takes a step back. I am as surprised as she is. Really, I hadn't meant to say that. The dress is made from a soft, billowy material that is almost translucent at the arms and legs. The neck is held together by two bits of string crisscrossing right above the chest, leaving an egg-shaped window to the pale hollow of her throat that bobs up and down with her breaths, fast and shallow, as if she is being held at gunpoint. We stare at each other.

"Well…uh, thanks," she speaks to the floor. She tucks a stray hair behind her ear. "I guess we'll buy this one, then."

"You're forgetting something."

"Huh?"

"You're taller than Yuigahama."

"So?" she murmurs, then catches herself. "Right. Of course. Wait here. I'll try on another."

Before I can tell her how little sense this entire thing makes, she is gone behind the curtains. This is another side I will never understand about her – rather, about all women. Why are they so obsessed with clothes? The question is so cliché I feel like a second-rate comedian. We will finish shopping soon, I tell myself, but playing the optimist has never suited me. I have a feeling Hiratsuka has forgotten our original purpose. Already I can feel her pull like the pull of a whirlpool, dragging me to the depths.

In the end, she goes through another four dresses and another forty minutes before deciding on the original black dress, making the whole thing even more pointless. "Are we finally done?" I say when we walk out.

"Shoes next."

It is as bad as I feared. Shoes take another thirty minutes. After the shoes comes stationary, after stationary comes jewelry (where she presses her face against the display case of a selection of gold wedding rings, then sighs and looks at me), after jewelry comes clothes (again), and after clothes comes a belated lunch. I am exhausted by the time we arrive at the restaurant at two o'clock. How can a teacher even shop so luxuriously? The Berlitz teacher's strike clearly did not have Hiratsuka in mind. My arms are ready to rip from their sockets, because of course I am the one carrying everything. Hiratsuka hums as she stretches out her legs, admiring the pair of black, open-back heels that she has chosen after trying on seven other pairs. Why not just wear sneakers? I'm still wearing mine from freshman year. Sneakers are cheap and comfortable. Besides, unless they have a foot fetish, nobody is going to be looking at your feet.

"And that's why you don't have a girlfriend," she says.

"After today, I'm not sure I want one. Not that I ever did."

She grins, sipping on her soda. "Don't worry, we're almost done. There's one last place we need to go."

I would've much rather preferred we have no more places to go, but I'll take the small victories. After lunch, we return to the clothing section for a third time, to a store called Uniqlo, a brand that even I recognize. Hiratsuka marches straight past the women's section, leaving behind sequined dresses and summer tops and (thankfully) animal-print lingerie. Before I realize where she is going, it is already too late.

"No way."

"Come on, it'll be fun," she says, linking her arm around mine. I stand my ground, but a contest of strength between Hiratsuka and me is not much of a contest at all. She drags me to a rack of casual clothes exhibited by a mannequin taller than I am and more built than I am (for once I'd like to see a skinny mannequin with a slouch – surely that is a better representation of the male population). Summer is in full swing: polos, shorts, T-shirts, blazers, vests. Hiratsuka is already thumbing through them.

"What about this one?" She holds up a red-striped polo and a pair of blue shorts.

"No – "

She thrusts the shirt into my arms and shoves me into the changing room. "You have two minutes!" her silhouette calls through the curtains. "Or I'm coming in there myself!"

How did shopping for a present for Yuigahama turn into shopping for clothes for me? The air condition is freezing as I strip down. This entire day will be filed under assault in some countries, slavery in others. The shorts are too tight and the shirt is too big. The entire thing is too gaudy – red and sky-blue are most definitely not my color, more fit for someone who flaunts attention. My reflection reminds me of an impressionist painting. Worse yet, it reminds me of Tobe.

We'll be done after this, I pray to myself, and fling open the curtains.

Hiratsuka rests her chin in her palm, looking me over like I am a museum specimen. I fidget under her gaze. This is surprisingly embarrassing.

"Looking good, Hikigaya!"

Our heads swivel as if mounted on pikes. At the entrance stands the devil herself in a floral dress. Her horns are disguised by a mop of black hair; her fur has been covered by a marble-white film bearing remarkable similarity to human skin; her claws are pink and manicured. She saunters over to us, shoes clicking against the tiles like cloven hoofs. Her smile has the curve of a butcher's blade.

"Are you two on a _date_?"

"Haruno," Hiratsuka says. "What a coincidence."

"We are not on a date," I say.

Haruno laughs, a sound like glass scraping against asphalt. She walks a circle around us, sizing up the bags at our feet.

"Sure looks like a date to me."

"We just happened to meet," Hiratsuka explains.

"Complete coincidence," I add. There are far too many coincidences today.

"Hikigaya and Hiratsuka, who would've thought? I wonder how Yukino will react."

Haruno is the sort of person who will light the fuse to watch the fireworks. The expression on her face is pure joy; to most other people her expression might bring to mind a woman in love, but Haruno is never so much in love as out of it. It will take a sterner man than Hayama for her to fall. What is she even doing here? Stalking me, no doubt. She reserves a special sort of affection for her favorite toys, an affection worse than most others' hatred, and Hiratsuka and I might as well as have been delivered to her gift-wrapped under the Christmas tree. I shudder and avert my eyes. She reminds me of a child playing with a small animal, knife in hand.

"You've got it completely wrong," Hiratsuka says. "We were both waiting for someone else, but they never showed up."

"So you decided to go on a date?"

"Of course not. We were going to…er…buy a present for Yuigahama's birthday." So Hiratsuka does remember why we are here. She looks at me sheepishly. "We got a bit sidetracked."

"So you're telling me a teacher and a student go to the same mall on the same day – in summer, no less – for completely different reasons. They just _happen_ to meet up, and they just _happen_ to go shopping together?" Haruno takes a deep breath, then breaks into another fit of laughter. Out of everybody I know, she is the one most likely to become a serial killer.

"That's exactly what happened," Hiratsuka says.

"Exactly." Haruno smirks.

We are being dragged into Haruno's pace. That's the first and last step to defeat. Much like playing black in a chess game, giving initiative to Haruno means you will never get it back. She excels at holding the high ground, at abusing a slight advantage until it turns insurmountable. That's why her battles always end in landslide victories. In order to defeat her, you must do whatever it takes to wrest back control.

I say, "So what if we are dating?"

Hiratsuka goes rigid. She stares at me like a mannequin, except her face is red instead of white. Haruno, on the other hand, is unperturbed. She gazes thoughtfully upward, tapping a finger against her chin.

"Then I wish you two the best of luck."

"Not that we are," I say.

"Of course not. A teacher dating a student? Imagine the scandal!" she says with relish. "Hiratsuka will never be able to teach again. But what are such petty worries in the face of love? And you, Hikigaya, you're the victim here. An innocent high school boy fallen into the clutches of a desperate older woman!" She eyes me slyly. "One can certainly do worse."

"Completely hypothetical, of course," I say.

"Of course, of course. Take good care of him," she whispers to Hiratsuka, who still seems to be suffering a mental collapse. "He may not look it, but he's more popular than you think. I may even steal him from you!" She looks me out of the corner of her eyes. I say nothing. "Just kidding!"

"Don't you have somewhere to be?" I say. Several college students are waving at us from outside the store. Annoyance flickers across Haruno's face. I feel sorry for those students; it is doubtful Haruno has ever had anyone she considers a friend in her entire life. In that respect, she and I were alike.

"Well, I'll see you around," she says. "Don't worry, your secret is safe with me."

"There's no secret."

"Of course, of course. You never manage to disappoint, Hikigaya."

If only I can. Maybe then she will stop her obsession. The problem is I don't know what she's expecting.

Haruno walks away with a different sort of smile on her face. Her friends say something to her and she says something back and they all laugh, and the entire time her expression does not change as if it is grafted onto a doll's porcelain face. At least she can be trusted to keep her word. Haruno does not lie, though not out of respect for truth or morality. Lying is for those who have no other means to get what they want. Anyone can lie. It takes a different person entirely to speak the truth and still get what they want.

"She's the same as ever," Hiratsuka says. Her face is still pink, but the color is fading.

"The day just keeps getting worse."

She punches me on the shoulder. "For someone who hates her so much, you get along wonderfully. Anyway, we're also done here. Let's go. I'll drive you back."

"What about the shirt?" I say dryly.

"It didn't look good on you anyway."

I am slightly offended. But I am almost free, at last. The sun is at its peak by the time we head outside. The asphalt is hot enough to feel even through my sneakers, the air shimmering like a desert mirage. After being in the mall for so long, the heat hits me like an insult. I am more exhausted than I've been in a long time, almost as exhausted as during the run where I tried to keep pace with Hayama. The weather is perfect for an afternoon nap.

"Thanks, Hikigaya," Hiratsuka says as we load the bags into her car. She stands with one arm propping open the lid of the trunk, sweat sliding down her forearm to the curve of her shoulders. "Teaching doesn't leave you with a lot of free time. It's been a while since I went out."

"I'm never stepping foot outside again."

"I know you'd rather spend your day with your friends instead of me. But I had fun."

"At least one of us did. There's nothing I love better than being a packhorse," I should've said. But Hiratsuka is looking off into the distance, the tips of her hair fluttering in the breeze, the sun casting shadows on her cheeks that bring out the purple of her eyes. What would I have been doing instead? Vegetating in my room, no doubt, being spoiled by Komachi. There was a new game I got yesterday I've been meaning to play. The new episode of FSN aired at noon. I'm two chapters into _The Lake_ , Yoshimoto's newest work. What if Yukinoshita had arrived? We would've bought Yuigahama's present and ended three hours earlier, because if there's anything we have in common it's that we both hate excess. Certainly I would not have had the misfortune of meeting Haruno. An infinite number of parallel worlds exists beside our own – that's Michio Kaku's words, not mine – and in each of them I am doing something far less troublesome than being a packhorse for a woman several centuries past marrying age.

"No," I say. "I wouldn't spend my day with anyone else."

* * *

A/N: This is likely the last chapter. The story originally started out as a one-shot, so I never had a destination in mind to tie these loosely-related chapters together. It's time to move on from the Yahari fandom, especially given the awful cliffhanger and lack of resolution S2 left us with. But who knows? If S3 ever rolls around, I might return. Anyway, I hope you all enjoyed reading!


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